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Sunday, February 20, 2011

This afternoon, TIFF Bell Lightbox hosts a free screening of short films by African-Canadian filmmakers as part of the free Family Day weekend events. The screening program is entitled Witness As Desired: A Celebration of African Canadian Film. It starts at 3:30pm in Cinema 4.

Featured filmmakers include Dawn Wilkinson, Powys Dewhurst, Alison Duke and Sharon Lewis. Many of the filmmakers will be in attendance at the screening. TIFF Co-director Cameron Bailey will also be in attendance.

There will be a reception and panel discussion with Cameron Bailey and
the contemporary filmmakers involved following the screening.

Witness As Desired is
an exploration of African Canadian identity in film. The program
presents a series of short films by emerging and established filmmakers
that reflect historical journeys and challenge representations of
African Canadians. It is also serves as vital documentation of
contemporary perceptions regarding race and identity.

Presented
by TD Bank Group, as part of THEN & NOW, a series of cultural
events. This celebration of Black History Month showcases visual arts,
performance and cinematic events for the entire family.

Worldwide PremiereDawn Wilkinson, Looking for Dawn, 2011Looking
for Dawn is a personal journey exploring how the skin colour of a
bi-racial actress informs the her roles, career, and ultimately
self-image and identity. Wilkinson uses interviews and archival footage
to explore how other bi-racial actresses are creating their own work in
order to express themselves.

Powys Dewhurst, Where Do White People Go When the Long Weekend Comes? The Wondrous Journey of Delroy Kincaid, 2008

A
highly artistic, 8 year old boy is raised by his grandmother in a
seaside Caribbean island fishing village. When his parents in Canada
"send" for him, he and his grandmother migrate to a 'First World' inner
city - but then she passes away. A lonely Delroy tries to understand his
grandmother's death, a new culture and his emerging identity as a
displaced, confused black 'immigrant' child in a new world.

Jason Ebanks, Olé', 2010A
stop animation short that features 100 cd covers from albums that have
inspired Ebanks creatively, and shaped him into the person he is today.
The wildly divergent musical artists and styles on display reflect an
esthetic informed by a universe of popular (and not so popular) music
over the filmmaker's life.

Alison Duke, Batty Boys Revenge, 2010This
colourful short is a full-on rant – highly political, but also full of
humour. An important statement of personal identity within the typically
uninspired mix of Canadian music video content. Can't stop, won't
stop..

Sharon Lewis, CHAINS, 2009, 10:41minOriginally
aired on HBO and winner of best science fiction at the Eugene
International Film Festival, CHAINS will make its Canadian premiere at
Witness As Desired. CHAIN, the story of a young woman, starved for
beauty in her desolate underground community of scavengers. She appears
to commit the crime of growing a flower by using water, a scarce and
precious commodity in her world. Munk, who oversees a roulette-type
death punishment, stops to consider this world's only flower – but the
gun is loaded and the trigger is squeezed...

Deanna Bowen, sum of the parts: what can be named, 2009, 18:00minA
performed oral history, this video recounts the 'disremembered' journey
of the Bowen family from its earliest documented history in Clinton,
Jones County, Georgia in 1815, told by Bowen herself. Influenced by Eli
Wiesel's 1989 New York Times article regarding art, the Holocaust, and
the trivialization of memory, the work chronicles the lives of family
members who could not speak on their own behalf by delving into the
unknown, retracing what is hidden, and reclaiming histories of the lost.

Sylvia Hamilton, Keep On Keepin' On, 2010, 3:00minA
short documentary style visual poem to Nova Scotia from the perspective
of a resident of African descent. It says: we are here, and we have
been here for a very, very long time. Using a seamless blend of live
action footage and rare archival still photographs, Keep On Keepin' On
is a visual challenge to the iconic representations of Nova Scotia as
being only white and Scottish.

Colina Phillips, MAKING CHANGE, 1995, 18:00minMaking
Change depicts the conflict between a man's powerful desire to
experience a fulfilling life as a musician versus continuing his days as
a responsible family man drained by tedious work in an underground coal
mine. This is in fact the filmmaker's parents' story, and making it
facilitated a transition from a music career to film. Making Change was
the first movie directed by Colina Phillips, and it remains a powerful
artistic statement.

Chantal James, The Little Prince, 2009, Rio de Janeiro, 6:52minThis
is the story of Geisiel Tavares, the leader of gang who recounts his
experiences of life on the streets of Rio de Janeiro with honesty and
humor, giving meaning to a way life often discounted by mainstream
society. The film is part of a larger project, The Undesirables, a
collection of photographs and video narratives examining social
exclusion among Rio's youth. Brazilian street children are often the
descendants of slaves and stigmatized through a veiled racist system.

Peter Dean Rickards, Proverbs 24:10, 2008, 2:35minProverbs
was filmed in the community of Waterhouse in Kingston, Jamaica and was
subsequently included in the landmark 2009 contemporary art exhibit
'Rockstone and Bootheel' at Real Art Ways, Hartford, USA . Slowed
footage features dancers undulating to an outdoor sound system; the
mournful recording of "All Things Beautiful" by Nick Cave and Warren
Ellis is substituted for the original soundtrack of pounding dancehall
music.

Witness As Desired is included in a series of programmed events associated with the exhibition

Position As Desired / Exploring African Canadian Identity: Photographs from the Wedge CollectionCurated by Kenneth Montague

Currently on view at the Royal Ontario Museum until March 27, 2011

Exhibition catalogue available from the ROM Museum Store and online from www.artbook.com

Position
As Desired and associated programming is generously supported by the TD
Bank Group, the Royal Ontario Museum, Citizenship and Immigration
Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and
the Toronto Arts Council.

Further programming includes:

Position As Desired: A Symposium on Artistic Practice and African Diasporic Communities in CanadaSaturday, March 5, 2011, 9:30am–5:00pmSigny & Cléophée Eaton Theatre, Royal Ontario Museum